I’ve heard vague whispers that that’s exactly what happened. No details, though I’ve been Googling for the last half-hour to see if I could find any.
I wonder also if there was a detour that got edited out. Maybe not, since they obviously planned two roadblocks, but it’s unusual not to have one. Also somehow I missed it; where did they get the clue and the food to feed the fish? As far as I remember the clue from the elphant task told them to go to Bangkok but didn’t say anything about feeding fish when you got there - how did they know where to go? Unless I spaced out for a minute.
Hell, yes! I’ve never seen anyone enjoy shoveling manure until this episode. And their squeals of delight on washing the elephant were positively orgasmic.
There was a kid holding a tray full of clues and fish food, behind the pagoda where they rebuilt the little shrine. The clue said to go a particular place and feed the fish. It seems that would have been the place to put the Detour, but maybe there wasn’t one this leg. Given the rule about partners needing to complete the same number of Roadblocks, some future leg may have two Detours and no Roadblock.
As I recall, the rule is that partners are supposed to stay with each other at all times except during Roadblocks. Usually the partner doing the Roadblock does some awesome thing like bungee jumping or paragliding which necessitates their separation. In this case, the task was not so awesome, but they could still separate from their partner anyway.
They picked up the clue and the bag of fish food after they completed the Spirit House Roadblock, off of the tray that the child monk was holding.
Aha, thanks, I did miss that.
I still say producer shenanigans. Why else would a bus driver stop his bus and sit there and wait for two passengers to be brought to his bus?
I dunno; that assessment of the snowboarders seems unduly harsh. They haven’t, as far as I remember, called upon the Lord to help them win the Race, which was the really grating part of the Weaver’s brand of Christianity. And I don’t think the little speech at the temple was meant self-righteously (although it was admittedly a bit garbled). I think the intention was more along the line of, “we’re secure enough in our Christian faith that we don’t feel threatened by displays of other religions. We respect other people’s religious choices, but we’re certainly not going to convert any time soon.”
Also, it’s pretty obvious that the boys were answering questions about their Christianity, rather than spontaneously bringing God into the Race. That’s an important distinction: I see no problem with a faith that’s strong, but quiet and respectful (there have been at least a couple ministers on past Races that I think fit that description).
I’m betting the producers asked them leading questions about what they thought about the Buddhist temples, how it affected their own faith, etc. If you listen to the second guy especially, and his “I don’t get any vibes” quote, it sounds like he was answering a direct question, not just volunteering info out of thin air.
Some seasons back there was a guy in the race who had just returned from a tour in Iraq. He spent the entire race comparing where he currently was to Iraq. He got a lot of crap for it, until he revealed in an interview that the producers asked him “How does this place compare to Iraq” every single day.
Cash? I wouldn’t put it past the producers to spread some money around to stop a bus for 10 minutes or get a pissed off cabbie to let people proceed.
Why do you think it’s a cash cow? It gets steady but not spectacular ratings (came in 3rd of the 4 big networks last week), and has to be pretty expensive to produce.
When it comes to calls of shenanigans that involve claims of the producers altering the game mid-stream to change the outcomes (changing a speed bump to something extremely easy, calling a non-elimination leg to avoid dumping a potentially likable team, somehow getting a plane to return to a gate) what would be the legal implications?
Is not The Amazing Race controlled by the laws around game shows?
There’s some ambiguity in there. Some people think it falls under game show laws and some people think it falls under reality show laws (which aren’t strictly the same). Same with Survivor and Big Brother…although Big Brother hasn’t been able to hide producer manipulation as well as the shows that are time-shifted (run all the way through and THEN edited into a narrative and broadcast). Big Brother is broadcast concurrently with the actual running of the game, plus viewers can subscribe to a live feed of the cameras in the house, so that you can watch close to 24/7 of the currently live season (“close to” because they do cut the feeds for various reasons…copyright concerns (if houseguests start singing), privacy concerns (if people in the hg’s lives are mentioned who didn’t sign releases), competitions (they always cut for comps) and live show).
It’s a lot harder to catch producer manipulation when you can actually see (or read about) the actual relationships and personalities in the house instead of relying solely on the story the producers tell in the broadcast show.
Most of the time, I take what they say with a grain of salt. I always assume when people are making comments that come off as preachy or snide, that the producer (or whoever) is asking leading questions.
I bet someone noticed they had something written on their straps, and asked what it meant and why they did it.
Perhaps, but having once applied for the Amazing Race I can tell you the application asks you all kinds of personal questions so odds are the producers knew they were very religious before they were interviewed the first time.
Plus, they were already at least somewhat public figures as professional athletes and Andy, at least, has apparently never been shy about his beliefs at all, having appears in a Christian snowboarding movie.
Interesting biographical note from that article (that I suspect won’t come up in the show, or at least not with details) is that in 2007 Andy’s father engaged in a shootout with police and was shot three times in the head, and survived.
IS it a game show or is it a ‘reality’ show based around a competition? That distinction could affect how the laws apply.
As for producer involvement, considering the shear logistics involved behind the scenes on a show like this is would almost be mandatory for the production team to keep the teams as close as possible. You can’t let the teams get too spread out or you would have to bunch the front runners for hours or days while you waited for every team to make it to the mat. The logistics involved in getting Phil where he needs to be, alone, would necessitate this. Not to mention that you would have an advance team, an production team and a clean up team who would all be on tight schedules as most of the locations where the events happen are in public areas that they would not have unlimited access to.
The twins went way up in my estimation in this leg due to both their enjoyment of the roadblock task and their refusal to beg for money when they were out of the running. For some reason asking a taxi driver for free ride didn’t strike the same “ugly tourist” vibe that begging does. Glad they got to go out on a high point.
Cindy and Ernie were pretty nasty during that interaction with their cab driver though. Not cool.
I have to agree with those who think the snowboarders were just responding to questions. They seem pretty respectful and focused overall, I wish there was a way to find out what questions they’re responding to in these clips - it would make it a lot easier to see who they are rather than who the producers want us to see.
I’m seeing a lot of criticism of Bill on other boards for doing the “Forward Hooo!” thing in the taxi, because they feel like it was some sort of mockery of a Native American chant or something. Is the idea of the old frontiersmen getting their wagon train moving with a cry of “Forward Ho!” something that’s so incredibly obscure already? I mean, I’m too young for Westerns (I’m 40…the only real Western that was still on when I was a kid was Gunsmoke), but I recognize that.
Did anyone wonder why at the temple, when the players couldn’t figure out how to rebuild their models, they didn’t just go look at the other team’s entries, rather than go all the way back to the original location? I’m guessing it was against the rules to do this, because surely it would have occurred to someone. Or else the other team’s models were immediately disassembled after they won, which we didn’t see.
I’m pretty sure in similar tasks in the past, where something had to be constructed to certain specifications, there was a fair amount of spying on other teams to see what they were doing.
I forgot to mention that I loved the speed bump this leg. It felt well thought out and organic to the culture and that particular leg of the race. Way better than sitting on a block of ice for 5 minutes, sitting on a sauna bus for 5 minutes, or assembling a weird wicker thing in a WWI trench. Plus, the twins were just so darned cute doing it.
As for the god botherers, their self righteous claims of how much better their god is than the temple they were at were offputting no matter how leading the producer questions were. Previously my favorites, I now hate them.
None, and nope. If you send an email to the FCC they’ll probably confirm this for you personally.
A quick google turns up this:
I can dig up a transcript of that FCC email if you like. It’s posted on hamstertime every Big Brother season.
Also in the linked cite:
Whether those laws, found in the U.S. Code under the heading, “Prohibited practices in contests of knowledge, skill, or chance,” even apply to Survivor at all is a question that’s never been answered. They refer repeatedly to a “contest of intellectual knowledge” (which Survivor certainly is not) or a “contest of chance” (which Survivor certainly is not) or a “contest of intellectual skill.”
TAR is not a contest of intellectual knowledge, contest of chance, or a contest of intellectual skill. Those are the only contests for which there are laws.
Well there was the “WE know who the one true god is” remark.
It’s a reality show, while the international logistics might be complicated at times, I can’t imagine it’s even half as expensive as the two shows that follow it (The Good Wife, CSI Miami).
I get that, but I’m of the opinion that someone truly secure in their Christian faith wouldn’t say anything about the weird vibes they get from another faith’s holy place. For example, see the sister of the Siblings.